Review by Ed Quillen
Transportation – July 1995 – Colorado Central Magazine
The Colorado Pass Book: A Guide to Colorado’s Backroad Mountain Passes
by Don Koch
Second edition
Paperback edition published in 1992 by Pruett
ISBN 0871088797
Assuming that the snow ever melts in the high country this year, the temptation will arise to explore some of those exposed pavement-free roads that climb from our valleys toward timberline, cross a divide, and descend into another valley.
If that urge strikes, you’ll find a kindred soul in Don Koch.
His collection of passes doesn’t pretend to be exhaustive. He focuses on passes that: A) are not paved, and B) can be negotiated, on at least one side, by a vehicle, ranging from passenger car to dirt bike.
Around here, that means about two dozen crossings, ranging from rather gentle excursions like Marshall and Weston, which most passenger cars can handle in good weather, to some adventures like Mosquito Pass and Hancock Pass (four-wheel-drive required, and a winch wouldn’t hurt).
With each pass, Koch provides a heading with general information. In the text, he tells you where to find both ends of the crossing, and warns you about intersecting roads that could lead you astray. There are no maps, other than a map of the state indicating various regions: San Juan, Sawatch, etc. The book is organized by such regions.
One real strength of the book is Koch’s clear writing about the geography and history of each pass; this reduced some of my confusion about areas where there are several crossings and an assortment of names, such as west of Walsenburg with Veta, La Veta, North La Veta, and Pass Creek passes.
If I’d had this book 20 years ago, I would have known better than to tackle Hagerman in a two-wheel-drive pickup ($120 to replace two rock-skinned tires) or Tin Cup in a Volkswagen beetle (about $200 for repairs).
Koch has produced a useful guidebook here, and it’s well worth perusing before you jump in the beater, stick it in compound low (okay, some of you may not own beaters, but instead the new official vehicle of mountain Colorado, an imported four-wheel-drive sport-utility vehicle) and head up a pair of ruts.
Come to think of it, you don’t even need to be a back-road driver to get good use from this book — it could be just the ticket for a hard-core mountain biker looking for new challenges.
— E.Q.
